State legislators have pledged to protect NIU’s College of Law which is on the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s chopping block.

The recommended cut came as part of an IBHE streamlining process which has issued slicing orders for 190 academic programs state-wide in public higher education.

State Rep. Zeke Giorgi, D-Rockford, said he would fight the recommendation tooth and nail.

One justification for the recommendation was that there is an oversupply of lawyers and the trend is projected to continue.

“I never heard anything so stupid in my life. Saying there is too many lawyers is nuts,” Giorgi said.

He said with more lawyers and competition, the cost of a lawyer could go down.

Giorgi said that a law degree is a very good education which people often use in other fields.

“This recommendation was made by a bunch of disgruntled bureaucratics who didn’t want the law school in the first place and were forced to accept it,” Giorgi said.

The school of law came to NIU in 1979 when the state legislature approved its transfer from south suburban Romeoville’s Lewis University despite strong opposition from the IBHE.

The state legislature had never overturned an IBHE recommendation and hasn’t since.

Giorgi was a strong supporter of the move in 1979. He said he is proud of the law school and the “phenomenal success rates of its graduates.

“I’ve talked with the bureaucrats who started this and told them it will happen over my dead body,” Giorgi.

“This will not pass. I guarantee a house majority against this recommendation,” Giorgi said.

State Sen. Judy Baar Topinka, R-North Riverside, who has a son in the law school, is not as optimistic.

“For the law school to survive, NIU will have to explain its case very carefully to each and every legislator. If they don’t do it, they could be in danger,” Topinka said.

“The legislature will have many new faces. NIU has to keep checking the temperature of the situation,” Topinka said.

While Topinka said it is generally a good idea to streamline public higher education, especially in the area of governance, she doesn’t think this recommendation is a good one.

“It’s a red herring. It’s not a very wise recommendation because NIU is the only public law school in the northern region of the state,” Topinka said.

State Rep. Mike Rotello, D-Rockford, an NIU graduate, said the recommendation is out of line.

Rotello said he would do everything he could to fight the recommendation and that the law school had a lot support among local officials.

“The law school is doing a good job, this recommendation came as a total surprise to me,” Rotello said.

He said the assertion that there are too many lawyers is “nonsense.”

He said the northern region of the state is experiencing tremendous growth and that it needs a public law school.